The place the phrase ‘Olympics’ comes from : NPR

Almost 3,000 athletes have confronted the icy rinks and snowy ramps in Italy for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

The Olympic Video games are host to uncommon athleticism and nationwide satisfaction. So earlier than we bid the Video games adieu in just some brief days, let’s commemorate the “Olympics” for this iteration of NPR’s Phrase of the Week.

The place the phrase comes from

The phrase “Olympics” is rooted in historical Greece.

In Greek mythology, the gods would descend from Mount Olympus into the city of Olympia to assemble and socialize with people, in accordance with Matthew Llewellyn, co-director of the Heart for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Analysis at California State College, Fullerton.

“Olympia itself was type of a sacred area,” he stated. “It was a sanctuary.”

Mount Olympus is seen from the port of Thessaloniki in Greece on April 2, 2015.

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Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP by way of Getty Pictures

The primary historical Olympic Video games started someday round 776 B.C.E., Llewellyn stated. Again then, athletes competed bare, observe stars obtained corporal punishment for false begins, and there have been no gold medals — solely silver and bronze, in accordance with the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s web site.

However after about 1,000 years of those video games, the competitors, together with the phrase, was misplaced throughout the Darkish Ages, or the aftermath of the autumn of the Roman Empire.

Just like the flame of the Olympic torch, nevertheless, curiosity in historical Greece and the Olympics was reignited throughout Europe’s Renaissance period. Folks had begun studying concerning the historical Olympics and conducting archaeological excavations of Olympia, Llewellyn stated.

“Round that point interval, late 1500s, early 1600s, we see numerous sporting contests that go by the title ‘Olympic Video games,'” Llewellyn stated. “And this might be Olympic with a ‘c,’ generally Olympick with a ‘okay.'”

For instance, the Cotswold Olimpick Video games in England have been taking place since 1612 and are nonetheless going sturdy, with occasions like tug-of-war and shin-kicking. The Zappas Olympics have been held just a few occasions in Greece within the late 1800s, sponsored by businessman Evangelis Zappas.

How we received to the fashionable Olympic Video games is contentious.

“Teachers are in fierce argument over this matter,” Llewellyn stated.

Some historians say Zappas petitioned Greece’s King Otto for a revival of the video games in 1856 and supplied to pay for them. Different historians, in addition to the Worldwide Olympic Committee, credit score French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin with proposing the revival in 1894. The primary fashionable Olympic Video games have been held in Athens, Greece, in 1896.

A monument in honor of Pierre de Coubertin, broadly credited with founding the fashionable Olympic Video games, stands exterior the New Nationwide Stadium in Tokyo on Jan. 21, 2020

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There are additionally arguments over who will get authorized rights to the phrase, Llewellyn stated.

In 2021, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee sued Puma, claiming the corporate was infringing on the committee’s emblems by submitting emblems for “PUMA TOKYO 2021” and “PUMA PARIS 2024.” In 2024, the committee sued influencer Logan Paul’s vitality drink firm, Prime Hydration, claiming it illegally used Olympic emblems in ads. Each fits have been dismissed.

“It is an egregious overreach, I believe, as a result of I do not assume you’ll be able to personal a phrase,” Llewellyn stated. “And also you actually cannot personal a phrase that was first used 1000’s of years in the past by the Greeks.”

NPR has reached out to the Worldwide Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee for touch upon the lawsuits however has not heard again.

What “Olympics” means to an Olympian

When four-time Olympian Ashley McKenzie was 11 years outdated, he received right into a scuffle over a Pokémon card.

Throughout this specific battle, McKenzie’s opponent caught him off guard by throwing him a sure method. It was a judo transfer, he would be taught. McKenzie hightailed it to the closest judo studio to search out the child and get his card again.

Ashley McKenzie of Nice Britain poses for a photograph to mark the official announcement of the judo crew chosen to Crew GB for the Tokyo Olympic Video games, on July 5, 2021.

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The coach there needed McKenzie to check out judo for himself. Listening to “Olympics” reeled him in.

“The phrase ‘Olympics’ to me, it opened my eyes to new doorways and new issues,” McKenzie informed NPR. “Once I first heard it, it gave me hope.”

Ten years after that encounter, he represented Nice Britain on the Olympic stage on the 2012 London Video games.

“Once I received there, it did not matter what I regarded like,” he stated. “It did not matter what I used to be doing or how I acted. Everybody, the entire nation, received behind me, and that is after I knew it was so good to be an Olympian.”